


unreal

by Aquaphobe



Series: un-titled [6]
Category: South Park
Genre: Crushes, Fluff, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Blonde Squad, Pre-Relationship, Teenagers, Unresolved Tension, can be read as a standalone BUT, may contain spoilers for other fics in this series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22901233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aquaphobe/pseuds/Aquaphobe
Summary: Sometimes, just sometimes, Butters Stotch wakes up and struggles to remember who he is.
Relationships: Craig Tucker/Tweek Tweak, Kenny McCormick/Leopold "Butters" Stotch
Series: un-titled [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/956469
Comments: 8
Kudos: 75





	unreal

**Author's Note:**

> a thank you to my readers, for reaching the 2000 kudos (and the 400 subscribers!) mark on _Unresolved_ , the main (and original) story in this series. you guys have _no idea_ how much i've been wanting to share this one with you. :')))
> 
> i hope that whether you're a long time reader or new to my work, you enjoy this shameless fluff

Sometimes, just sometimes, Butters wakes up and struggles to remember who he is.

It's nothing to worry about, he doesn't think. The 16-year-old's a bit of a ditz, and he gladly accepts that about himself. When those moods take him and he's feeling spacey, he lets himself float in it, soaking it up into his skin as if he were a sponge. He's walking through the world in a dream, and everything's pale and beautiful. How can South Park look so pure, he finds himself thinking as he tilts his head back to look at the skudding clouds, or as he brushes the tip of his finger over the sharp point of an icicle captured on the edge of his window. Isn't the world surreal?

Coming back to himself is a series of jolting steps throughout the beginning of the day, from dressing and eating his breakfast, to clambering onto the bus and stumbling off on the other side. At first he doesn't process his two friends roughing each other up, or hear the other students chattering on the halls, or even really register when he's moving from his locker and towards the classroom. He walks into homeroom, slowly waking to everything around him, the world only just beginning to filter through layer after layer of white noise. It feels as if he's wading through soup and then going about for the rest of the day in dirty, damp clothes. He sticks to himself. He clogs his own pores.

Whenever this happens, he prefers to be by himself. Struggling to digest reality is something that ought to be private, he thinks. There's generally a lot of sniffling and self-pity involved until he can get a better grasp on himself, which really sucks when it happens at school. It's uncomfortable to realize, after hours of drifting through space on legs that he can't feel, that he does in fact exist. It's unnerving.

What's more unnerving is the deep, aching sadness he's overwhelmed with in these moments. A feeling that wraps itself around his windpipe and chokes him up, so that even just breathing is tricky. The sense that there's more going on - as if he's missing some vital part of him.

"Yo, Butters?"

The blonde boy jumps, the fork he'd been poking his mac'n'cheese with _click_ ing loudly against the ceramic plate. Around him, the bustle of the cafeteria filters in, a wash of amiable chatter and loud colours. Every movement is sharp, every face bizarre. Every fold of clothing sits wrong on his body - the tightness of his jeans, the fit of his shirt against his belly, the weight of his padded corduroy jacket on his shoulders.

He blinks, slow and heavy, and turns his head to the person who'd called his name. The tightness in his throat eases away in a breath. Long lashed, dark blue eyes and a boyish face. Fresh bruises from that scrap in the parking lot just before first bell (Butters recalls it now with some bewilderment), and bags under his eyes. Scruffy orange parka hanging off of bony shoulders and a tee with a faded picture of Wonder Woman bulging out of a particularly skimpy red, white and gold outfit on the front.

Kenny McCormick. He would know that face anywhere.

Smiling wide and soft, Butters hums a questioning sound. Words are lost to him right then, still attempting to catch back up with his brain, but he isn't worried. Kenny will understand. He always does.

His best friend flashes a toothy grin that doesn't reach his eyes, leans in so close that Butters feels warm breath shift over his cheeks and says quietly enough that only Butter will hear him, "Dude, you good? You back with me?"

Resisting the urge to reach up a hand to pat against Kenny's face, he spends long moments contemplating the question. Is he good? Is he _back_? He doesn't know. It's hard to tell, when the whole world is turning the wrong way and he's spinning in his own skin. Filled up and rung out. But it's not so bad, now that he's surfacing from that odd, deep sense of sadness.

(He feels as if something has gone wrong. Something awful. Something that makes him want to wrap his arms around Kenny and never let go.)

"'M great, bud," he says instead of attempting to communicate that weird disparity between what's in his mind and what's going on outside of him. "Great," he repeats, the words slurring a little.

The tightness of Ken's smile says he thinks otherwise, but they're interrupted before the scruffy boy gets a chance to press for a more honest response.

A shriek goes up a few tables to their left, followed by the clatter of a full tray toppling onto the floor. Their table - the two of them and the ex-Raisins crowd (who're flicking through there cells, gossiping and painting one another's nails in favor of eating their lunches) - turn to look in the direction of the commotion, along with half the cafeteria.

There's a boy with wild blonde hair standing up from the table, face pale and big eyes wide. He's babbling, high and reedy, words that Butters can't make sense of. Like that, with his hands in the air and his shoulders tucked right up around his ears, the boy looks like he's gonna pass out or something. Butters watches as a taller kid with a chullo hat and a long, blank face stands up and tugs one of the blonde's clenched fists, coaxing it down between them.

Tweek, Butters' brain supplies. Tweek and Craig.

Feeling as if he should maybe feel something stronger than he is, Butters stares unabashedly as the taller boy leads the shorter over the bench, around the table and towards the exit. He feels compelled to watch, even turning in his seat to gaze at the other blonde as the pair walk straight past him. He tilts his head back, and feels his eyebrows rise a little when he catches sight of Tweek's face.

It's a _thin_ face, which strikes Butters as odd. Wasn't Tweek always a little podgy? He's washed out with great, dark bags under his eyes, little hairs sticking to his temples and cheeks shiny from tear tracks. His nose has turned very pink.

As he's sat there staring, Tweek's green eyes flicker down to Butters' face. A chill of familiarity seeps into Butters' skin.

Tweek Tweak's expression is vacant. Glassy eyed and hollowed out. A boy trapped in a nightmare. A boy who doesn't know who he is.

The boy's eyes flit away as Craig tugs him off with gentle hands and mumbled words. As soon as they're out of sight, the heavy door swinging shut behind them both, the spell is broken.

Turning to comment on the scene to his best friend, Butters pauses. Kenny's smile has slipped away entirely. All of the color has drained out of his face and when he notices that he's being studied, he returns the look as if he's trying to dig right into Butters' brain. The shorter blonde can't help but wonder what he might be searching for, but is unsettled by the furrow between Ken's eyebrows and the thinness of his mouth.

So Butters does what he does best: he smothers his face in the goofiest grin he can, and he nudges at Kenny's ribs with his elbow. "Boy oh boy, that sure woke me up. He has a dang good pair of lungs on him, huh?" He manages a chortle that sounds mostly genuine and perhaps even a little bit oblivious, and turns back to his food. "Y'know," he says as he scoops congealing cheese sauce and pasta onto the tines of his fork, "we should go somewhere after classes. Maybe the mall?"

Sweet boy that he is, Ken lets himself be drawn away from whatever it is he's worrying over. Taking the bait, he says, "The mall, huh? What'd you wanna do?"

A familiar, aching need to reach out and touch - to lean his head on Ken's shoulder or to weave their fingers together - is so strong in that moment, that Butters' can't help the way he nudges at Kenny's trainer with the toe of his boot. Just... to remind himself that this is real. That they're sat together in the cafeteria. That Kenny's solid and stationary beside him. He shoots his best friend a small grin, looking at him from the corner of his eye and luxuriating in the happy flutter of his heart when he feels Ken's foot nudging back.

As long as it's with Ken, then he doesn't care what it is they do or where they go. He doesn't even care that his mind's still swimming just outside of his body. His best friend draws him away from his sadness, and leaves him feeling lighter.

"Anything," he says, and means it.

...

"Is this what you had in mind?" Ken asks hours later as he leans forward to pass Butters the joint that they're sharing. Their fingers graze and that warm spark of attraction tingles down the length of Butters' arm.

Snorting in response, he raises the joint to his lips and gives a long, slow drag. Waits until the burn of the initial inhalation eases and he can tilt his head back to blink stinging tears out of his eyes and study the pink and orange sunset. Like slices of peach. Or maybe nectarine.

"Not really," he admits at length, releasing the held breath in a long, sweet trail of smoke and inhaling another. Pauses to think on it a while longer, watching as Kenny hunches his shoulders and leans against the brick wall, a branch doing its best to poke him in the eye. He struggles not to giggle at it, and coughs when he ends up inhaling a little too much smoke. "Still a real nice evenin' though," he says, wheezing and clearing his throat. "You seen the sky? It's like a fruit salad."

"Fuck, dude." Leaning forward, the scruffy boy snatches the joint out of Butters' hand. Says in a patronising tone, "I think you've had enough of that."

Rolling his eyes, Butters stretches out a cramped leg and kicks at his best friend's thigh. Snowmelt is sinking right through his new jeans and he knows he'll have a wet butt when he stands up, but he just can't bring himself to care. They're squished up in a small space off to the side of the mall, where a stretch of the old parking lot was torn up to make way for a flowerbed a handful of years back, when the Mall was being remodelled. It's overgrown and kinda cramped, but it's well sheltered from sight and far enough away from the entrance and the priority parking that no one's gonna spot them or smell the weed.

"Hamburgers, Ken, you sure do act like a douche sometimes." But he doesn't see the point in complaining, beyond that. His head is stuffed pleasantly full of soft sounds, warm colors and shivering cold. When he's like this there's no point in smoking, anyhow.

"Why, mister Leopold Stotch," Kenny says, putting on a Southern twang and fanning himself like some kind of a lady. "That's just about the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."

Leaning forward, Butters smacks lightly at the scruffy boy's shoulder, unable to hold a serious face. He's always loved how playful his best friend is. "Wiener," he says by way of reply.

After that, they lapse into silence. Butters wraps his arms around himself, sinks back against the thin evergreen behind him and looks out over the bushes at the sunset. Wisps of white clouds swirl through the deep pinks, and somewhere off to their left is a chorus of cooing pigeons, pairing off and getting ready to roost. The stink of car exhausts and cloying weed rolls over him. He lets his eyes slip shut and, for a moment, stops trying to tether himself down. Existing is kinda tiring at times, isn't it? And he's sure there's more to it all, to the ache that's taken root inside of him.

He gets about as far as imagining having no need to eat or sleep or ever cry again, when he feels a pressure, warm and real, wrapping itself around his hand.

Blinking away the thrum of disconnection, he makes a sleepy noise. His stomach does a little wriggle. Ken's bent over his own knees, joint held off to one side and the fingers of his free hand curled around the underside of Butters' palm. Deep blue eyes and unwavering attention, all on Butters. It's... a lot to take in.

What's even harder to absorb is the concern pressing his friend's mouth into a wonky frown, so when Kenny pulls lightly at Butters' hand the same exact way Craig had tugged at Tweek's in the cafeteria, Butters allows himself to give in. He shuffles gracelessly through the lumpy bark chippings and the slush so that he's right up beside Ken. The second his back meets the brick wall, his hand is dropped and Kenny stretches one arm up and around his shoulders. It's so easy to lean in to the unexpected embrace - is surprisingly comforting to roll his head to one side until it fits against the sharp edge of Ken's collarbone. Cold metal from his best friend's zip prints itself onto Butters' cheek and when he draws in a long, steady breath, he rediscovers that earthy scent that is all Kenny. Fresh rain and newly turned earth. The smell of living, growing things that can't be smothered by any amount of nose burning aftershave or cheap deodorant. He's green and clean and so alive it make Butters' chest ache.

"The view of the sky's better from this angle," Kenny says, and it's such a ridiculous excuse that Butters huffs a chuckle. The young evergreen towers up over them, blocking out the sunset altogether, so that it's little more than a handful of sparse peach coloured gaps between the branches.

"Bud, I dunno how to tell you this, but it really isn't." He makes a thoughtful noise and turns so that his nose brushes along the underside of Ken's jaw. Wonders whether it's the existential crisis, the weed or the proximity to the boy he's head over heels for that makes him feel light enough to walk straight up into the sky. "You wanna know what I think?"

"What d'you think?" Kenny says in a voice deeper than usual. He tilts his head down towards Butters, and like this their faces are so close that they share soft puffs of breath. Heat rises in waves through Butters' stomach. He finds his eyes drawn to those lips, so often hidden by scarves or mufflers. So expressive. They say that eyes are the windows to the soul, but for _Kenny_...

"I think you just wanted an excuse to snuggle." He'd meant it as a joke, but the words have an unintended substance. They float around them, barely mumbled but fully acknowledged for the truth that they hold. And Ken's smiling, the slow unfurling of something precious. Butters can't help pressing himself closer, replacing the brush of his nose with the lightest touch of his lips against the junction of his friend's jaw and throat. Fingers tighten around the curve of his shoulder, and a thigh presses back against his.

For a moment, it's hard to tell whether it's _his_ heart racing, or his best friend's. They're so close to that edge, so close to _more_.

And then the moment ends. Kenny turns away with a loud huff, staring out into the middle distance somewhere Butters can't reach him. He raises the forgotten joint back up to his lips. "You got me there, man," he says after a long drag. "Can't keep my hands off you."

(Don't then, he wants to say. Stop trying. We could be so good. We could be everything.)

Releasing a slow, shaky breath, the blonde allows himself to settle, slipping out of the mood. He presses his cheek to a bony shoulder and lets the warmth in his chest siphon off into his limbs. His smile comes easily, even as his heart rate slows back down.

Reality threatens to break through, that little voice in the back of his head berating him for pushing too far into territory he told himself, years ago, that he wouldn't. Not until the right time. If it ever happens, it's gonna be perfect. He repeats that to himself as if it were a mantra at times like this, when he's lost in his head and his feelings begin to overwhelm him.

Even when the world melts away and Butters forgets who he is, Kenny makes him feel real. That's worth staying just the way they are, forever.

"I don't wanna go home," his mouth says without his permission.

"Then don't," his best friend replies, as if it's the simplest thing in the world. "Stay with me."

...

In the end, it really is simple.

They hunt down KFC, dump their books and school bags at Kenny's and then go out into the woods together. The sun's dipped down below the mountains, leaving the pinks and oranges behind for dusky reds and browns. The trees stretch up into the sky, branches reaching for the clouds. Spring is crawling out through melting white, tentative buds and new leaves. Butters knows he'll be grounded for not coming home, but he's turned his cell onto flight mode so that no-one can contact him. He's too busy brushing his fingertips over rough tree trunks and swinging the steamy bag of takeout to care.

(One of the plus sides of not really existing is that for just a little while, he forgets to worry about his parents.)

"It'll be cold by the time we get there," Ken says, making eyes at the bag and edging closer.

"Gosh, well then, I guess we better walk faster," he says with a grin, trotting a few paces ahead when the taller boy makes a grab for it.

Narrowing his eyes, his best friend rolls his sleeves up to his elbows with purpose and begins stalking towards Butters, an animal about to pounce. "You wanna play it that way, huh?" The words are a playful growl that send a shiver down his spine.

A high giggle bubbles up in Butters throat as the other boy lunges at him, and he darts away with a squeal, the takeout clutched to his chest as he half dodges, half trips around the trees. Kenny's right behind him, fingers barely managing to snag on the back of his corduroy jacket before he makes another bid for freedom.

And so they run and stumble and dance around one another, not needing to see the path they're taking in order to know exactly where they're going. Kenny's fingers grasp at empty air and Butters shrieks. They both know he'd be an easy catch if Ken put his mind to it, but it's the act of it. It's the weaving together, the steps of a much longer running game. It's the truth of their friendship, wrapped up in childish play. Kenny always chasing, and Butters always just one pace ahead. Their laughter is swallowed up by the encroaching night and returned to them in breaking twigs; in skidding shoes; in bruised up arms and legs where they graze too close to the underbrush.

Eventually, it stops. Butters is maybe a little soft around the middle (and awful at running besides), so inevitably he gives up first. He pants and wheezes and laughs himself hoarse, and Kenny pushes on a final burst of speed, tackling him around the middle so that they both stumble a few steps before managing to steady themselves.

Despite the crisp air Butters is overheated, his neck sweaty and his cheeks burning. The arms Kenny's thrown around his waist are a loose circle, and the chin that settles on his shoulder from behind makes his racing heart thump as loud as a war drum. Kenny's chest rises and falls against his back and he has to resist the urge to lean further into him.

The silence stretches on around them the way it always does on days like today, where Kenny's touch starved and Butters is spacey enough not to push him away. (On days where they both need something more.) The air is thick and stifling. They stay like that, wrapped up in the darkness and in each other, until their breathing slows and the desperate urge to spin around and kiss his friend cools in the shorter boy's veins.

He makes to pull away, but is reeled back in against a solid chest with an ease that reminds Butters about Ken's recent growth spurt. He's still too skinny, but there are bands of ropey muscle building up on him, stripping away the boyishness and replacing it with something closer to the body of a young man. At 16, Kenny McCormick is mid-transformation, a duckling growing into a swan.

Butters allows himself to be pinned there, his back pressed close to his best friend's front. Wonders if they could maybe stay like that forever.

Into the quiet of the night, Kenny murmurs, "I won. Don't I deserve some kinda prize?"

With uncooperative fingers and a flush that's less to do with the running and more to do with the implication behind those words, Butters hoists the bag higher on his chest. "Geez, ain't cuddlin' like this enough for you?"

A thoughtful hum, right over his ear. (He shudders.) "It's pretty fuckin' nice, I'll give you that. But... what about a fry?" Suppressing a laugh at the ridiculousness of that question Butters shoots the taller boy a playful glare out of the corner of his eye. The sheepish grin that he gets in response is little more than a blur. "Just one?"

Unwilling to let it go but knowing it'd be silly of them to keep playing about like this, he holds the bag out to the side and pokes, with his free hand, at the circle of Ken's arms. "Fine, fine, take it then, ya dumby. Just leave some for me."

When he reattempts to slip away the other boy lets him, pulling the takeout from him with a smirk that's almost lost in the shadows of the trees. "Don't worry, boo, I know how to share," he says as they begin ambling along again.

"Golly, sometimes I really wanna smack you," Butters remarks thoughtfully. His friend chuckles.

And so they walk on, teasing and nudging as they go, wrapped in the rustling of the bag and the smell of oily takeout. The occasional fry or chicken wing is passed between them, fumbling fingers that touch too long to be anything other than intentional.

By the time that they step out into the familiar clearing where Jimbo's hunting lodge hunkers itself down a stretch of sparse grass, the bag's half empty. Greasy fingered and sated, they clamber up the steps to the door, Butters gripping onto the railing with his usual care. (He never _has_ gotten over his fear of stairs.)

Since Ken's hands are full it's his job to retrieve the key from its hiding spot in the eaves, which requires a lot of wobbling around on the tips of his toes with his arms stretched up above his head. When he eventually digs it out, he lowers back down with a huff and a sullen, "You're no help," in Kenny's direction, where the guy's been slouching against the wooden wall, watching through half-lidded eyes and a smirk.

The lock opens with a grating _click_ and sticks a little until Butters throws his weight behind it, but eventually they're able to stroll inside. On the ceiling, tiny green stars glow down at them.

Butters feels his way along the edge of the wall for the cord of the fairy lights that appeared in here a couple months back, before the winter break. There's a quiet _click_ and a flicker, and then the space is lit up in golden tones, the abandoned mattress a bunch of them carried through the woods when they were 14 draped in a ratty pile of blankets and a couple of lumpy cushions. The room's just as bitterly cold as the air outside and spiderwebs cling to the shadowy corners around the rafters, but this place is so full of memories that Butters doesn't see it as the dirty hut that he knows it is. These days, even the grimy little window is endearing.

It's understandable though. After all, this place feels like the closest thing to a home that Butters has ever really had.

While the shorter blonde shuts and locks the door behind them, Ken sets the takeout on top of the counter space and drops down to the edge of the mattress to heave it aside and reveal their secret storage hole, where they'd pried back a loose floorboard a year or so ago to hide their stuff in case anyone else ever visited it. Mostly it's just candy, pop and Ken's stolen magazines, but still. It's theirs, and that's all that matters.

Sidling up to the bed, Butters bends down to unlace his muddy black boots, and places them neatly to one side.

"You want some pop?" the taller boy asks, holding up a can of Pepsi as Butters scoots back on the bed so that he's able to lean against the wall.

"Nah, I'm good thanks, pal." Rifling through his pockets, he draws out his cell and enters his passcode. He downloaded a couple of movies earlier in the week, so he plans to put one of them on in the background while they chat and snack. The screen lights up with a picture of them both drunk off their butts at Token's last annual New Year party, and he pauses. The photo's slightly grainy and neither of them are looking too dapper, but it's special to him. Despite the strobe lighting, the image is just about clear enough to make out the wiener that Ken's got drawn on his cheek in indelible ink and that Butters is wearing a bubblegum pink wig (which he borrowed from Portia). They're pulling big, cheesy grins, their lips smeared in bright red lipstick they stole from Mrs Black's vanity. Posing with their arms thrown around one another's shoulders and the neon green tutu Kenny won during a bet framing in the bottom of the screen, they look wild. Present. So alive it stings a little, somewhere deep down.

An icy shard of reality spears its way through him. He thinks of floating. He thinks of forgetting himself. He thinks of Tweek Tweak, thin and haunted.

He recalls, with a jarring sort of _squeeze_ , Kenny. Kenny, bloody and broken from a fall out a second story window. Kenny, curled up in a hospital bed choking on his own lungs. Kenny, crushed beneath the front end of the school bus. Kenny, bleeding out into the snow from a gash in his stomach. Kenny, dying over and over again and Butters being helpless to stop it.

Butters never being able to do _anything_.

His best friend's just flopping down beside him, hands full with a can of soda and what's left in their bucket of wings, when Butters finds himself slipping his cell off to one side, and talking. The words are mumbled - blocky and thick where they're fighting to stick in the back of his throat.

"I dunno how ya do it, Ken." Swallowing around his dry mouth, he continues. "Livin' everyday like you got no cares, like you haven't gone to Heck so many times. Don't you ever feel wrong in your body? Doesn't it change stuff for you, up here?" Butters raises a shaking hand to his chest, fingers clutching at the front of his jacket.

His best friend slows in his shoving at the covers, and rearranges the bucket of chicken between them. Butters watches as he considers the question, deep blue eyes averted.

Once he's had a long enough time to think it over, Ken replies in a small, flat voice, "I cope. I don't have any other choice." A rough shrug. The other boy tugs the collar of his jacket higher around his mouth. "Besides, even though dying sucks ass and coming back ain't much prettier, it's not nearly the worst part."

Words that sound rehearsed. Have they had this conversation before? This all seems so _familiar_...

They lapse into silence, until it becomes apparent Ken's been wrapped up in his own thoughts again. Butters reaches over, tucking a loose strand of straw blonde hair back out of his best friend's face. When their eyes meet, he draws his hand away, into his lap. Turns to stare out across the room. Repeats for probably the hundredth time:

"What is, then? The worst part, I mean."

Kenny mirrors him, _thunk_ ing his head lightly back against the wall and stretching his long, thin legs out in front of him. Butters grinds his knuckles together as he waits.

At length, his best friend says in a hollowed out voice, just slightly muffled by his collar, "The worst is what it does to everyone 'round me." Out the corner of his eye, Butters watches the scruffy boy scrub a hand over his face. "How no matter what happens, no matter what I do, people always forget - and the longer it's gone on, the harder it seems for them to notice me at all. Their eyes skip right over my face. They don't hear what I say. No one- no one ever fucking _remembers_ -"

The words cut off abruptly, the hard edge of them stinging.

" _I_ do," Butters corrects. "Even though it probably don't count for much, and even if I sometimes struggle, I remember." How could he not? After everything that they've gone through together, after the fallout from all those events... God, how could he ever go back to what it was like before?

Every time that Kenny dies, he feels it like a physical blow. He recalls it now, how the wind is knocked right out of him. All his reasons for living drain away. The colours fade from the world and he's empty. Carved out. On those days, all he wants to do is wrap himself up in the soft, lapping tides of his waking dreams, and to wipe everything away. On those days, when he can either curl in on himself, blinded by agony and loss, or tuck himself away in that muffled nothingness and wait to be pulled back out again, he knows exactly which he would choose.

(Loving a boy like Kenny, unreciprocated as it is, can be very difficult. But not for the obvious reasons. He doesn't _care_ that they're not a couple. He doesn't mind whether or not he'll ever get more from their friendship than what they have now. The bad part is the hurt. The loneliness. The crippling fear that every time he says goodbye to the boy he loves, it could be the last. Or, worst of all, that one day he might wake up and forget all of this. All of Kenny. For _good_.)

He doesn't notice he's tearing up until Kenny reaches out and squeezes at his hand, pulling it out into the space between them and lacing their fingers together. It's slow and clumsy, unpracticed despite how long they've been friends, and how much they've survived together. Physical touch isn't something they indulge in, on normal days.

But today _isn't_ a normal day.

Aside from the swelling on Ken's cheek from his earlier scrap with Stanley, he's clean faced. Free of the love bites he'd had couple of night before, courtesy of his most recent fling with one of the cheerleaders. Butters turns their hands over and studies his friend's palm. No blisters, no cracked knuckles, no split nails. He's clean. New.

 _Alive_.

(But he _wasn't_ , was he? Not yesterday. Maybe not the day before, either.)

"Was I there?" he asks the question with a tremble, chin wobbling. "When it happened, was I with you?"

Ken stares down at their interlinked hands, gets that far-off look in his eyes that Butters recognizes, now. "No. Not this time."

Maybe he should feel relieved? He doesn't. Everything's so stark and painful. He squeezes his eyes shut to stop the tears leaking out. "Then why's it still hurt like I _was_?"

There's a quiet chortle, and Kenny's fingers press hard into the back of his hand. "Because you're fucking special," says Kenny, as if it's the only truth in the entire world that matters. The words are gruff. "You always have been; you always will be. You _see_ me, Leo. More than anyone else in this piece of shit town does." A hoarse burst of laughter. "God, thank _fuck_ I have you. What the Hell would I do if _you_ forgot me too?"

Butters feels a sob force its way out of him, a staggering ache. He rises up onto his knees, turns to face his best friend and throws his arms around Ken's neck, a hug that presses them together cheek to cheek. It's wet, the position's awkward and Butters thinks that he might have knocked over their bucket of wings, but when he feels arms curl around his back and pull him down into a painfully tight embrace, he decides he doesn't mind.

Slumped over Kenny's lap, crying like a baby and swimming in the reality of his world, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, this is okay. As long as he knows Kenny's alright, then so is he. They can deal with everything else the same way that they've dealt with the rest of life and death so far:

 _Together_.

**Author's Note:**

> <333


End file.
